Thursday, July 06, 2006

[Politics, Rebellion Week]

Media Collusion With the GOP.

In the real world, the Republicans, in sole power for the past six years, and in majority power for most of the past dozen, have botched pretty much everything they've touched. In bizarro world, it's the Democrats who are in disarray, though, because some of them disagree with each other. For the past several months, I have observed this dynamic as it plays out on cable TV and the news shows:

Moderator: So, Mr. Republican, you said three years ago that Iraq had nukes, that sanctions weren't working, and that Saddam was Satan. Two years ago, you said that the war was a success and we'd be out of Iraq in two weeks. So what went wrong.

Mr. Republican: Well, Moderator, we were mostly right, as you know. Saddam was Satan, and in 1983, he did have a bathtub full of bio weapons he later used on his own people. So the President was right to invade. And there have been elections and a democracy is in place and we have never strayed from our rhetoric in backing up the President.

Moderator: Yes, now about that, Mr. Democrat. Last week in the Senate, you slow-witted surrender monkeys really tore at each other in a traitorous manner. Why is it that you so fail to be unified like the Republicans? Are you really as clueless as I'm suggesting? Is it true that you really lack a plan, as the RNC spokesman keeps telling us?

You think I jest, but have a look at Andrea Mitchell's performance on Meet the Press on Sunday (she was standing in--ably, you'll see--for Tim Russert):

MS. MITCHELL: Well, let’s talk about real solutions, Senator, because Democrats are sharply divided over Iraq. Two weeks ago, only 13 Senate Democrats supported the Kerry-Feingold amendment by Senators Kerry and Feingold calling for an immediate withdrawal. You were not one of them.

SEN. SCHUMER: Correct.

MS. MITCHELL: But as the party’s campaign chairman for the Senate campaign, doesn’t that amendment make Democrats look weak?

SEN. SCHUMER: Not at all. You know what our job is? Look, the president is commander in chief. The president, by the Constitution and everything else, is in charge of Iraq. He got us in there, he’s got to figure a way out. Our job, our job is oversight, our job is holding people accountable. So...

MS. MITCHELL: Wait a second, you’re going to the election...

SEN. SCHUMER: Right.

MS. MITCHELL: --to, to the voters in November. Don’t you also have the job as campaign chairman for Democrats of presenting an alternative?

SEN. SCHUMER: Let me say this. I think what the American people want is for the Congress to hold the president’s feet to the fire....[etc.]

Later, despite an unambiguous statement from Schumer, she browbeat him about Lieberman--another topic of enormous interest to the media:

MS. MITCHELL: OK, as campaign chairman, will you now, today, commit to supporting whoever wins that Democratic primary in Connecticut where he is now facing that tough challenge?

SEN. SCHUMER: Well, let me say this, Andrea. Harry Reid, myself, the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, in this primary, are supporting Joe Lieberman. And we’re doing everything we can to help him. I’m not going to speculate on what happens after the primary, because we believe Joe Lieberman is going to win, and it—I’m not going to undermine my candidate by speculating about what might happen afterwards. We think he’s going to win and we’re supporting him in the primaries.

MS. MITCHELL: You’re supporting him even though his position on the war is completely contrary to most, most Democrats?

SEN. SCHUMER: Well, again, the Democratic Party is united in holding the president’s feet to the fire on oversight, but--

MS. MITCHELL: Are you suggesting that you might not support the Democratic winner?

This isn't the end of it--she continues to accuse him of being a lowdown traitor to, alternately, Lieberman or the Dems. It segues into questions to McConnell about ... what rat bastards the Dems are for not backing Lieberman. It was literally tag-team debating.

Now, all of this might arguably--arguably--be just hard-nosed (if idiotic) journalism. But we'd expect the same dogged attacks on the Republic McConnell, whom, she notes:

....said during the first month of the war back in April of 2003. “American success in Iraq showed that ‘arm-chair generals and New York Times reporters’ were wrong in their assessments of how difficult the war would be. ... Rebuilding Iraq will be much easier than rebuilding Afghanistan, he said, because Iraq has a well-educated population and the oil to finance reconstruction. ‘Iraq has the potential to be a jewel in the Middle East.’” Was that a miscalculation on your part, reflecting what the administration’s miscalculation was?

He drones sloppily on about how we haven't been attacked since 9/11 (revelancy?) which proves that it was "fundamentally correct" to invade (I kid you not). And how many interruptions and follow-ups does Mitchell respond with? Zippo.

Nine times she followed up on Schumer's loyalty over Lieberman, and not once on how the GOP have handled the war. That's GOP complicity and it's obscene.

2 comments:

zemeckis
said...

one thing the press never likes to admit, besides who owns them, is their own vanity. the vast majority want to be read, or seen, and will follow whatever way the wind blows, in order to get read/seen.

it insures their job security and sense of self worth, if they have one.